The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential female people in Chemistry,
#301
Anna Lee Waldo
#64067
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (99 years)
Anna Lee Waldo is an American historical fiction author. She is most noted for her novel Sacajawea. Biography Anna Lee Waldo was born February 16, 1925, in Great Falls, Montana, and grew up in Whitefish. She claims her interest in the subject of Native Americans began as a child when she collected spear points on the shores of Whitefish Lake in Montana and listened to stories of Blackfeet and Crow grandmothers. Growing up though, she was interested and had a talent for science; graduating from Montana State University majoring in chemistry. She attended the University of Maryland gaining a master's degree in organic chemistry, where she also met her future husband, Willis H.
Go to Profile#302
Suse Broyde
#53827
Overall Influence
Suse Broyde is an American chemical biologist who is a Professor of Biology and Affiliate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that process DNA damage induced by environmental and endogenous carcinogens, notably mutagenesis and repair.
Go to Profile#303
Christine Wiedinmyer
#83570
Overall Influence
Christine Wiedinmyer is an American atmospheric chemist who is research scientist in the Atmospheric Chemistry Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. She has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#304
Zhao Yufen
#94143
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Zhao Yufen is a Chinese chemist at the college of chemistry and chemical engineering at Xiamen University. She has been an outspoken critic of chemical plants. She was the youngest female member elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#305
Ora Kedem
#62210
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (100 years)
Ora Kedem is professor emerita at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a recipient of the Israel Prize for life sciences. In 2005, Kedem was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the thermodynamics of irreversible transport processes and the development of separation processes for the treatment of water and wastewater.
Go to Profile#306
Zafra M. Lerman
#70567
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Zafra M. Lerman is an American chemist, educator, and humanitarian. She is the President of the Malta Conferences Foundation, which aims to promote peace by bringing together scientists from otherwise hostile countries to discuss science and foster international scientific and technical collaboration. From 1986 to 2010, she chaired the American Chemical Society's Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. She has been successful in preventing executions, releasing prisoners of conscience from jail and bringing dissidents to freedom. She is the recipient of many awards for education and science diplomacy, including the 1999 Presidential Award from U.S.
Go to Profile#307
Debbie C. Crans
#105497
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Debbie C. Crans is a Professor of Organic, Inorganic and Biological Chemistry and of Cell and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University, where she also is a Professor Laureate of the College of Natural Sciences. Crans specializes in the fundamental chemistry and biochemistry of drugs, with particular focus on vanadium and other transition metal ions as metals in medicine and investigation of their mechanisms of toxicity.
Go to Profile#308
Jennie Patrick
#97850
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Jennie Patrick is an American chemical engineer and educator. As a high school student, she participated in the integration of Alabama's public schools. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979, she became one of the first African American women in the United States to earn a doctorate in traditional chemical engineering. She went on to pioneer work on supercritical fluid extraction. Her educational work has focused on the mentoring of African American and female students.
Go to Profile#309
Susan M. Kauzlarich
#113880
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Susan M. Kauzlarich is an American chemist and is presently a distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of California, Davis . At UC Davis, Kauzlarich leads a research group focused on the synthesis and characterization of Zintl phases and nanoclusters with applications in the fields of thermoelectric materials, magnetic resonance imaging, energy storage, opto-electronics, and drug delivery. Kauzlarich has published over 250 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded several patents. In 2009, Kauzlarich received the annual Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathem...
Go to Profile#310
Sonia Contera
#32432
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Sonia Antoranz Contera is a Spanish physicist. She serves as Professor of Biological Physics at the University of Oxford, a senior fellow at the Oxford Martin School, and a senior research fellow at Green Templeton College.
Go to Profile#311
Rina Tannenbaum
#46756
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Rina Tannenbaum is an Israeli/American materials scientist and chemical engineer and presently professor in the program of chemical and molecular engineering in the department of materials science and engineering at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Go to Profile#312
Livia S. Eberlin
#41473
Overall Influence
Livia Schiavinato Eberlin is a Brazilian analytical chemist who won a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship for her research on the use of mass spectrometry to detect cancerous tissue. Education and career Eberlin is the daughter of Marcos Nogueira Eberlin, a Brazilian chemist at the University of Campinas. She was born in Campinas, and she earned her bachelor's degree in 2007 from the University of Campinas. During her undergraduate studies, she did summer research in mass spectrometry at Purdue University, where her father also had research ties. She later enrolled at Purdue for her doctorate, which she completed in 2012.
Go to Profile#313
Patricia Thiel
#66434
Overall Influence
1953 - 2020 (67 years)
Patricia Ann Thiel was an American chemist and materials scientist who served as a distinguished professor of chemistry at Iowa State University. She was known for her research on atomic-scale structures and processes on solid surfaces.
Go to Profile#314
Laurel Schafer
#35580
Overall Influence
Laurel Schafer is a Canadian Organic chemist. She is a full professor at the University of British Columbia and Canada Research Chair in Catalyst Development. Schafer's research is at the intersection of organometallic and organic chemistry.
Go to Profile#315
Ruth Patrick
#18058
Overall Influence
1907 - 2013 (106 years)
Ruth Myrtle Patrick was an American botanist and limnologist specializing in diatoms and freshwater ecology. She authored more than 200 scientific papers, developed ways to measure the health of freshwater ecosystems and established numerous research facilities.
Go to Profile#316
Jeanne E. Pemberton
#112284
Overall Influence
Jeanne Ellen Pemberton is an American analytical chemist and Regents' Professor at the University of Arizona. Her research involves surface science and developing applications for glycolipids. In 1997, she was cofounder of the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists . She is an elected Fellow for several scientific societies, including the American Chemical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has leadership roles with the academic journals Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry.
Go to Profile#317
Marianne Baudler
#124150
Overall Influence
1921 - 2003 (82 years)
Marianne Baudler was a German chemist. She is known for her research on phosphorus. Life Marianne Baudler was born in Stettin. She started studying Chemistry at the TH Dresden in April 1940 and finished her studies with a Diplom in 1943. From 1943 to 1946, she worked on her dissertation in the group of Franz Fehér at the University of Göttingen. Starting in 1949, Baudler performed research at the University of Cologne. In 1952, she finished her habilitation. In 1963 she became extraordinary professor at the University of Cologne. In 1968, the full professorship followed. From 1986 on, she was...
Go to Profile#318
Christel Marian
#117750
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Christel Maria Marian is a German chemist. She is a full professor and the director of the institute of theoretical and computational chemistry at the University of Düsseldorf. Education and professional life Marian studied chemistry in Cologne and Bonn. She finished her doctorate in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Sigrid D. Peyerimhoff in 1980. She did a postdoc in the Theoretical Physics Department of Stockholm University in the group of Per E. M. Siegbahn. She completed her habilitation at the University of Bonn in 1991. In 2001, she joined the University of Düsseldorf as a full professor.
Go to Profile#319
Barbara J. Garrison
#123215
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Barbara Jane Garrison is an American chemist who is emeritus professor at Pennsylvania State University. She is the former Shapiro Professor of Chemistry and head of the department. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Vacuum Society.
Go to Profile#320
Judy Hirst
#39561
Overall Influence
Judy Hirst is a British scientist specialising in mitochondrial biology. She is Director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Early life and education Hirst grew up in Lepton, a village near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and attended King James's School and Greenhead College, Huddersfield. She studied for an M.A. in chemistry at St John's College, Oxford, and then was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1997, for research supervised by Fraser Armstrong on electron transport in redox enzymes.
Go to Profile#321
Kristina Edström
#112454
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Kristina Edström is a Swedish Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University. She also serves as Head of the Ångström Advanced Battery Centre and has previously been both Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Science and Technology and Chair of the STandUp for Energy research programme.
Go to Profile#322
Kathleen C. Taylor
#68524
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Kathleen C. Taylor is a chemist who won the Garvan–Olin Medal in 1989, and is notable for developing catalytic converters for cars. Education Taylor attended Douglass College at Rutgers University, earning a bachelor's in chemistry in 1964. She completed her Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1968 at Northwestern University working with Robert Burwell, Jr. on the surface chemistry of catalysts. Following her Ph.D., she did postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh with Charles Kemball where she worked on the use of deuterium to track reactions on catalysts.
Go to Profile#323
Jaqueline Kiplinger
#87199
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Jaqueline Kiplinger is an American inorganic chemist who specializes in organometallic actinide chemistry. Over the course of her career, she has done extensive work with fluorocarbons and actinides. She is currently a Fellow of the Materials Synthesis and Integrated Devices group in the Materials Physics and Applications Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory . Her current research interests are focused on the development of chemistry for the United States’ national defense and energy needs.
Go to Profile#324
Cathleen Crudden
#60850
Overall Influence
Cathleen M. Crudden is a Canadian chemist. She is a Canada Research Chair in Metal Organic Chemistry at Queen's University at Kingston. In February 2021, she took up the role of Editor-in-chief at ACS Catalysis.
Go to Profile#325
F. Ann Walker
#98969
Overall Influence
Frances Ann Walker was an American chemist known for her work on heme protein chemistry. She was an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society.
Go to Profile#326
Barbara Lothenbach
#125701
Overall Influence
#327
Susmita Bose
#126445
Overall Influence
#328
Lucia V. Streng
#96882
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Lucia V. Streng was a Russian Empire-born American chemist. She spent much of her career studying the noble gases and their properties, successfully synthesizing krypton difluoride. She and her husband, Alex G. Streng, both held positions at Temple University.
Go to Profile#329
Heather Kulik
#91100
Overall Influence
Heather J. Kulik is an American computational materials scientist and engineer who is an associate professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research considers the computational design of new materials and the use of artificial intelligence to predict material properties.
Go to Profile#330
Anne Boutin
#94998
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Anne Boutin is a French physical chemist and theoretical chemist, research director at the CNRS and director of the Department of Chemistry at the École Normale Supérieure. A specialist in molecular thermodynamics, she develops molecular simulation tools as well as theoretical approaches for studying the structure, dynamics, thermodynamics and reactivity of confined molecular fluids.
Go to Profile#331
Kate Carroll
#99482
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Kate Carroll is an American professor of chemistry, chemical biology, and biochemistry at Scripps Research in Jupiter, FL, since 2010. She was previously a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#332
Yimon Aye
#111560
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Yimon Aye is an American chemist and molecular biologist. Currently she is an associate professor of chemistry at EPFL. Career Aye spent her early life in Burma. She completed her undergraduate studies in chemistry at the University of Oxford and obtained her master's degree in 2004. She joined Harvard University to study synthetic organic chemistry with David A. Evans, achieving her PhD in 2009. She then moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellow to work with JoAnne Stubbe. There she performed research into the regulatory mechanisms of ribonucleotide reductase.
Go to Profile#333
Anastassia Alexandrova
#99759
Overall Influence
Anastassia N. Alexandrova is an American chemist who is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research considers the computational design of functional materials. Early life and education Alexandrova was the Winner of the Russian Regional Student Olympiad in Chemistry in 2000. She attended the Saratov State University for her undergraduate studies, where she was awarded a scholarship from the Government of Russia for outstanding performance in science. She moved to the United States for her graduate studies at Utah State University, where she studied aromatic clusters using Ab initio genetic algorithms.
Go to Profile#334
Iseult Lynch
#121991
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Iseult Lynch is an Irish chemist and Professor of Enivornmental Nanoscience at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on the safety of nanoparticles in the environment and their interactions with biological entities.
Go to Profile#335
Malika Jeffries-EL
#94381
Overall Influence
Malika Jeffries-EL is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Boston University studying organic semiconductors. Specifically, her research focuses on developing organic semiconductors that take advantage of the processing power of polymers and the electronic properties of semiconductors to create innovative electronic devices. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2018.
Go to Profile#336
Elizabeth Simpson
#55434
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Elizabeth Simpson OBE FRS FMedSci is a British biologist. She is the Emeritus Professor of Transplantation Biology at Imperial College London. Simpson is particularly known for her elucidation of the nature of male-associated minor transplantation antigens, and their roles in the generation of immunological tolerance, graft versus host disease, and transplant rejection.
Go to Profile#337
Maria Skyllas-Kazacos
#89518
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Maria Skyllas-Kazacos AM FTSE is an Australian chemical engineer best known for her pioneering work of the vanadium redox battery, which she created at the University of New South Wales in the 1980s. Her design used sulfuric acid electrolytes and was patented by the university. In 1999 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to science and technology, particularly in the development of the vanadium redox battery as an alternative power source".
Go to Profile#338
Jennifer Wilcox
#106053
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Jennifer Wilcox is an American chemical engineer and an expert carbon capture and storage and removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. She is the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at University of Pennsylvania and a former James H. Manning Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Wilcox conducts research focused on minimizing the environmental and climate impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels. In January 2021, she became acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and Principal Deputy Assist...
Go to Profile#339
Heather Maynard
#75947
Overall Influence
Heather D. Maynard is the Dr Myung Ki Hong Professor in Polymer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She works on protein-polymer conjugates and polymeric drugs. Maynard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#340
Jenny Y. Yang
#94570
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Jenny Yue-fon Yang is an American chemist. She is a Professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine where she leads a research group focused on inorganic chemistry, catalysis, and solar fuels.
Go to Profile#341
Miriam Diamond
#80051
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Miriam Diamond is an environmental chemist and a professor at the University of Toronto. She started the Professor Diamond's Environmental Research Group which works to develop strategies that reduce dangerous contaminants in the environment.
Go to Profile#342
Isabel Arends
#116274
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Isabel W.C.E. Arends is a Dutch chemist and professor of biocatalysis and organic chemistry at Utrecht University. She was appointed dean of its Faculty of Science in July 2018. Her research specializes in environmentally-friendly, or 'green', chemistry; for example, using enzymes as biocatalysts while avoiding the need for toxic solvents.
Go to Profile#343
Kersti Hermansson
#113504
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Kersti Hermansson is a Professor for Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University. Education and professional career She did her PhD on "The Electron Distribution in the Bound Water Molecule" in 1984. From 1984 to 1986, she had a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swedish Research Council with Dr. E. Clementi at IBM-Kingston, USA. From 1986–1988, she was a Högskolelektor in Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University. In 1988, she was a docent of Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University. In 1996, she was a Biträdande professor. Since 2000, she is a professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Uppsala University.
Go to Profile#344
Julia Laskin
#109432
Overall Influence
Julia Laskin is the William F. and Patty J. Miller Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. Her research is focused on the fundamental understanding of ion-surface collisions, understanding of phenomena underlying chemical analysis of large molecules in complex heterogeneous environments, and the development of new instrumentation and methods in preparative and imaging mass spectrometry.
Go to Profile#345
Sue Gibson
#96623
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Susan Elizabeth Gibson is a British research chemist, Professor and Chair in Chemistry and Director of the Graduate School at Imperial College London. Gibson is an expert in chemical synthesis and catalysis.
Go to Profile#346
Karen Gleason
#113874
Overall Influence
Karen Klincewicz Gleason is the Associate Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she has also served as the Alexander and I. Michael Kasser Professor of Chemical Engineering, from 2006–present. She has invented over 15 patented designs. She has developed a hydrophobic surface that can be applied in energy harvesting.
Go to Profile#347
Victoria Hale
#23470
Overall Influence
Victoria Hale founded the nonprofit pharmaceutical company The Institute for OneWorld Health in San Francisco, California in 2000 and was its chairman and CEO until 2008, when she became Chair Emeritus. She then went on to found Medicines360, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing medicines for women and children, including pregnant women.
Go to Profile#348
Laura Lechuga
#109276
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Laura M. Lechuga Gómez is a Spanish scientist who is a biosensor researcher and full professor. She leads the Nanobiosensors and Bioanalytical Application Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology .
Go to Profile#349
Clare McCabe
#115581
Overall Influence
Clare McCabe is an American chemical engineer who is Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Engineering and professor of engineering at Vanderbilt University. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019. Her research makes use of molecular modelling to understand the properties of biological systems, fluids and nanomaterials.
Go to Profile#350
Katherine H. Freeman
#82073
Overall Influence
Katherine H. Freeman is the Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University and a co-editor of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Her research interests are organic geochemistry, isotopic biogeochemistry, paleoclimate and astrobiology.
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